Clean Feed

"And here it is, finally, the much expected solo recording of double bassist Pascal Niggenkemper titled 'look with thine ears'. Everything we heard from him leading groups such as vision7, Upcoming Hurricane, PNTrio, 'le 7ème continent', collaborating with baloni and PascAli as well as being a member of Gerald Cleaver's Black Host, Thomas Heberer's Clarino, Cooper Moore Trio and the Nate Wooley / David Rempis Quartet, made us dream of the opportunity to hear him SOLO.

"It took a while for Eve Risser to consider herself a "pianist". Also playing flute, toy instruments and amplified objects, whatever she can use in a venue without a piano, the French musician envisioned this instrument only as a sonic resource among others. That changed in the last few years. Now she humbly says: "above all, I like the idea of trying to be a pianista".

“New Artifacts” documents a thrilling concert in Brooklyn by Tony Malaby, Mat Maneri, and Daniel Levin. The performance captured here transformed the listeners in attendance that evening, bringing them into a creative world open with possibilities. Now, with this recording, Malaby, Maneri, and Levin invite you into their narrative of sound. This is music rich in gesture, and a music that is lyrical at its core. Its lyricism does not set itself in song form, yet is deeply reminiscent of the emotional ethos of vocal forms. This lyricism becomes the ground of the compositional field these three artists enter into: It is a field that is open to asides, proclamations, intimate words, and cries across a great space. The human voice is translated to their instruments with great compulsion. We hear Tony Malaby’s voice on his saxophones as a big circle, or perhaps a vibrant sphere in open space, with wind and light inside it – and this shared space is mirrored by the strings. At times, it’s as if Daniel Levin’s cello and Mat Maneri’s viola become saxophones, too, and vice versa. We are lucky to have a document of this special concert, to provide an opportunity for those of us who were not there that night to experience the magic of this music for themselves.

Bassist Eric Revis is a heavyweight in more than one respect. He is doing the improbable in a remarkable way, thereby ignoring collectively imposed and maintained demarcations at work. Armed with his physically very present, raw and vibrant bass sound he beats his track into the realms of freely improvised music. He made his debut as a leader in 2012 with Parallax, on the authoritative Lisboan Clean Feed label, with a dream team of Jason Moran, Ken Vandermark and Nasheet Waits. His 2013 follow-up was an even more surprising trio with pianist Kris Davis and many peoples' favorite drummer, Andrew Cyrille.

I'm In is trombonist Joe Fiedler's fourth recording with his longstanding trio and the second on his Multiphonics Music imprint. This session marks a departure of sorts for Fiedler's adventurous three-piece, finding the trombonist, new bassist Rob Jost and stalwart drummer Michael Sarin exploring more traditional blues and jazz forms than heard on the group's previous albums, Sacred Chrome Orb (Yellow Sound, 2011), The Crab (Clean Feed, 2007), and Plays The Music of Albert Mangelsdorff (Clean Feed, 2005).

Dysphotic Zone is a freely improvised solo piano album and it's Margaux Oswalds debut recording for Clean Feed. The unedited performance was recorded live at the Monopiano Festival in Stockholm.

French violist Frantz Loriot has been living in NY for periods of time recently, developing collaborations with players like Joachim Badenhorst & Pascal Niggenkemper (in Baloni), as well as with Jeremiah Cymerman, Sean Ali and Carlo Costa (in Natura Morta). This disc/project was recorded live in Zurich, Switzerland in April of 2014 with a fine 10 piece ensemble, co-led by Mr. Loriot and Manuel Perovic, who did arranging and conducting as well as composing. Besides Mr. Loriot & Mr. Bandenhorst, the only names I know here are Silvan Jeger from Day & Taxi and Yuko Oshima from a duo called Donkey Monkey with pianist Eve Risser.

Two of the musicians (saxophonist Karl-Hjalmar Nyberg and guitarist Karl Bjora) ensembled in this trio come from the Megalodon Collective, a septet that was already described as «sounding like the Mingus Dynasty band trapped on a star cruiser with controls set for the heart of the sun» or a «pit orchestra from hell performing the soundtrack to a Keystone Cops movie directed by Quentin Tarantino». Something similar, adapted for this redux variation of that band, can be said about Kimchi Moccasin Tango. Here, Nyberg and Bjora are associated with drummer Dag Erik Knedal Andersen, someone who all Clean Feed lovers already know from CDs recorded by the groups Saka and Akode.

If you heard “Almost Tomorrow”, the duo recording by Susana Santos Silva and Torbjorn Zetterberg previously released by Clean Feed, and found it “introspective” and “exploratory”, take a breath. This goes much deeper into the hidden zones of our inner selves, showing that intimacy and open communication isn’t something only possible between two individuals – sometimes it may take three or more people to achieve it. Here, the addition of Hampus Lindwall brings the music more close to the center of the Earth and to the confines of our souls.

Pianist and composer Zack Clarke has received international acclaim for his explorations of jazz improvisation, classical, and electronic music.